In this episode of MAP – the Market Access Podcast, Dr. Stefan Walzer sits down with Rainer Westermann, Chairman of the Life Sciences Acceleration Alliance (LSAA), to ask whether Europe can remain a globally competitive home for life sciences innovation — and what has to change for new therapies to reach patients.
Bringing an investor’s lens, Rainer explains why so many promising European companies scale in the US instead: the “valley of death” between great science and a viable business, the shortage of productive growth capital, the absence of a deep, liquid capital market, and the drag of long timelines, fragmented member-state systems, and cost-containment-first thinking. They also unpack the ripple effects of the US Most Favored Nation policy, the patent cliff, and why patients — who are also voters — belong at the center of the debate.